1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of electronic server-based interaction systems and pertains particularly to methods and apparatus for matching electronic bids to electronic requests based on standardized protocols.
2. Discussion of the State of the Art
Session Initiation Protocol SIP is a well-known communication protocol created by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). SIP is used over data networks to initiate and define multi party multimedia telephony and IP sessions including Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and video streamed over the network using one of several known transport protocols such as Real Time Transport Protocol (RTP). In terms of the layers of the suite of Internet protocols, SIP sits in the application layer. In typical use, SIP is somewhat limited in scope to a dedicated purpose of building or initiating multimedia sessions, defining them using session description language (SDP), and then for tearing down those sessions when completed. It has occurred to the inventors that while SIP is not used to transmit documents, it is capable of handling multipart message bodies using MIME or S/MIME headers. Much information about SIP in particular is available at the following Web resource http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3261.txt.
In certain communications environments, large companies routinely compose and then post or send out proposals for other companies or entities that wish to submit formal bids that might be accepted for fulfilling those requests. Such activity involves identification of certain standards of quality, procedure, and like attributes imposed by the project requester on to those entities that might be accepted to fulfill all or a portion of a project. In certain business environments, those standards are somewhat universally understood by all of those who would submit bids for consideration. However, navigating through all of those requirements can be a challenge for some bidders. Moreover, the process of selecting which submitted bids fit all of those criteria is also a very challenging, complex, and time-consuming task.
Therefore, what is clearly needed is a system and methods for communicating those requirements to bidders electronically enabling the bidders system to interpret those requirements and for facilitating automated screening of submitted bids according to the level of conformity of those bids relative to those requirements. A system such as this could reduce much work associated with qualifying bids submitted from multiple bidders.